With The Nemesis Machine, British artist Stanza imagines a cybernetic city that reacts in real time to data from its environment. Made up of electronic circuits, sensors, cameras and countless miniature urban elements, the installation takes the form of a teeming metropolis, criss-crossed by flows of information and in a constant state of activity.

Data captured within the exhibition space – visitors’ movements, presence and images – become the very material of the artwork, continuously transforming this machine-city. Stanza thus makes tangible a largely invisible phenomenon: the vast amount of information constantly produced, collected and analysed in contemporary urban environments.

Both fascinating and unsettling, The Nemesis Machine questions the development of smart cities, surveillance, artificial intelligence and our growing dependence on connected technologies. Who collects our data? For what purposes? And what space remains for individual freedom when our behaviour can be observed, recorded and analysed? The work immerses us in the ambiguities of a world in which technology promises to make our lives easier while continuously expanding the possibilities for control.